Like I'm Saying Goodbye
by minachandler
Summary: Set post 1x23, and during the 4x19 flashbacks. Laurel finds comfort in Oliver's arms, but she can sense there is something he's not telling her.
It's not long after dawn as Laurel and Oliver lie in bed together, quiet, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Laurel is nestled behind Oliver, her small body curled around his, one ankle hooked around his knee. Laurel's absent-mindedly tracing the thick scars on Oliver's back, her fingertips grazing the crisscrossed lines, intricate, on his skin.

"Ollie?" she says, and she doesn't know why her voice feels so loud when she speaks but it does.

"Yeah?" he replies, turning to face her but not quite meeting her eyes. Instead his hand wanders to her abdomen, palm skirting up her ribcage until he's cupping her breast.

"You okay?"

"I don't know," Ollie says honestly. "You?"

"I don't know either," Laurel admits.

Silence settles on them again, the lukewarm kind that makes Laurel shift closer to Oliver, hiding her face in his bare shoulder. His body feels both familiar and unfamiliar pressing against her, like the Ollie she knew, the Ollie she loved, but – weathered, somehow. Different. His muscles leaner, eyes harder, kisses more tender.

"He was a hero," Oliver says suddenly, making Laurel lift her face up to his questioningly. "Tommy. He – sacrificed everything to save you."

"I – want to say I wish it hadn't been like this," Laurel says quietly. "You being presumed dead for five years, and then coming back into my life – our lives."

"I'm sorry," he says sincerely.

Laurel nods but can't meet his eyes. "I know you are. Just like I know that in spite of all that pain and hardship and loss – I wouldn't change any of it."

"Really?"

"I found comfort in the last person I ever thought I would. More than that. He saved me. Not just in CNRI – I mean he saved me from myself. I was falling apart, but he was there to catch the pieces." Oliver closes his eyes, lands a kiss on her neck. "You know, until you came over I kept trying to look at old photos of him. His things. Only when I did I felt so upset that I couldn't feel close to him."

"I miss him too," Ollie says softly. Laurel takes a deep breath, lifts her hand to his cheek (it's rough and prickly with stubble and when she kisses him his mouth burns against hers).

"Somehow… being here with you? It made me feel close to him. For the first time since – since he left."

She's alarmed when Oliver's eyes fill unexpectedly with tears and he tries to look away but Laurel's already framing his face with both hands firmly. And when – with what seems like great effort – he looks up, the slightly watery blue eyes that stare back at her are not those of the man who was almost a stranger to her when he first got back from the island but those of the boy she fell in love with so long ago. That alone is enough to make a lump form in her throat and the gap in her heart to just grow wider, achingly so, to the point that she grimaces at the pain of it. "Hey," she whispers. "It's okay."

He shakes his head. "It's not."

"Last week, you said… that I would blame you too if I knew the truth," Laurel says slowly. "What did you mean?"

Ollie sighs, and Laurel can feel the flutter of his breath against her throat, the heave of his chest against her palm and the quickening of his heartbeat at the movement. "I didn't tell you," he says at last, "because I didn't want you to hate me."

"Ollie –"

"But then I realised," Oliver continues heavily, "that even if you do hate me, I'm pretty sure I hate myself more."

"What are you talking about?" Laurel demands, and some of her tearfulness has dried away now, replaced with a mixture of anxiety and frustration.

"Not long after you came to see me… in Verdant, I – went to see Tommy. I told him to fight for you, that you chose him, that he should at least hear you out." Laurel's silent, taking in what Oliver's saying but not quite understanding.

"Then why did you come over here?" she says finally. Her voice is thick now, with unshed tears.

"Because… I don't know," he says helplessly. "I didn't think it would be possible, Laurel, for –"

"For me to forgive you?"

He shakes his head. "Not just that. I mean – that was part of it. After everything I've done… I didn't think I deserved to be forgiven. But more than that – I didn't think a future with me and anyone – especially you – would ever be possible."

"Why are you saying that like it isn't a possibility now?"

Oliver doesn't say anything. It seems for the life of him he can't say anything. But it's not hard for Laurel to guess, judging by the guilty way he bites his lip.

"I love you," he tells her finally, "and I wish that was good enough for you. That I was good enough for you. Good to you. Like Tommy was. But I'm not a hero like he was."

"I don't need you to be a hero," Laurel says firmly. "But I need you, Ollie. Now more than ever."

(She still hasn't told him outright that she loves him. Not since before he left on the Gambit over five years ago. Whatever's happened they're not quite there yet. And no doubt Tommy's last words to her, too, are too fresh in her mind for her to even think about uttering them to anyone else.)

"I should probably leave in a bit," he says abruptly. "Got to check on my mom and Thea."

"Not yet, though?" Laurel asks, and her tentativeness is veering on the side of almost anxiousness as she watches him.

"Not yet," Oliver agrees. Laurel takes comfort in that, in his lips suddenly on hers once more and the taste of salty tears and grief and pain that is only really bearable when shared. And it's easier, so much easier, to let herself go and allow the ache of arousal between her legs to overcome the painful melancholy of grief and confusion in her heart. He knows her well, even after all this time, knows her weak spots and what she likes and what she wants.

They lose themselves in each other, Oliver first with his head buried between her thighs, then soon after her nails – painted black – are digging into his back, palms covering taut shoulder blades and holding on when he's inside her, making her gasp. He makes love to her like they're not promised a future, desperately, needingly, with an intensity that makes Laurel's head spin more than a little.

Still – Laurel can't help but wonder, as they drift off to sleep together afterwards, why it felt like his hands and lips were touching her for the last time.


End file.
